1. Lenin's Mausoleum

Lenin's Mausoleum Photograph: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

The mummified Bolshevik leader has long been Moscow's most macabre tourist attraction but he may not be around much longer. Kremlin officials have hinted that they want to remove Lenin from his cube-shaped Red Square mausolem and give him a decent burial. Russia's communists are vehemently opposed. But it's only a matter of time before Lenin is finally laid to rest by capitalist forces. Go and see him now before it's too late. You can then join the debate: is the Vladimir Ilyich on public display the real thing, or (as his wrinkled ears suggest) an artful fake?

2. Sokol artists' village

People walk past an old house at the Sokol Village, an old artist neighbourhood marked out for destruction in Moscow Photograph: Justin Jin

The village just 20 minutes from the centre of Moscow has long been a haven for weary Muscovites wanting to relax in green space amid surroundings of rustic quiet. Founded in 1923, Sokol garden colony was a unique utopian experiment mapped out by the Soviet architects Alexei Shchusev and Ivan Zholtovsky. Its original denizens were artists, sculptors, and intellectuals. Several of their descendants live here still. The village, however, is now under threat of demolition following the intervention of Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow's wrecking-ball-friendly mayor. Luzhkov has pledged to flatten 30 of the 113 cottages on the site, claiming that they were built illegally. Go and have a wander amid the limes and red sugar maples before the bulldozers arrive.

• Get to Sokol on the Zamoskvoretskaya metro line from central Moscow. Map

3. Mayakovskaya metro station

Mayakovskaya station cupola Photograph: Peter de Jong/AP

The most elegant metro station in Moscow, Maykovskaysa is becoming an increasingly shabby parody of its once-pristine self. The roof leaks; the station's exquisite rhodonite columns clad in stainless steel are being irreversibly damaged. But for now, the station is still home to a series of ethereal ceiling mosaics set in oval-shaped cupolas. Designed by the artist A Deyneka, the mosaics depict an idealised 24-hour period in the life of the Soviet Union – with gymnasts, cherry blossom, and Soviet fighter planes gliding across a perfect azure sky. The station is named after the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. Go out of the station and you'll find his statue in the square opposite, once a favourite meeting point for Soviet intellectuals and writers.

4. VDNkH

Now called the All-Russian exhibition centre, or VVTs, this vast complex is home to a series of giant rococo pavilions evoking the grandeur – and the kitsch – of the late Soviet Union. The centre originally housed buildings devoted to atomic energy, electrification, and cattle breeding – as well as to national Soviet republics such as Armenia and Uzbekistan. These days, however, many of the Stalinist pavilions are falling down, and several have recently disappeared. Walking among those that remain on the 140-hectare sight is a bit like stepping back in time: there are space rockets, statues of Lenin, and heroic slogans praising the now-vanished USSR. Modern additions include circus rides, a museum devoted to mammoths and other woolly Ice Age creatures, and a building selling cut-price electronic goods.

5. The Melnikov House

Melnikov House Photograph: I. Palmin

Moscow is full of avant garde masterpieces but they are disappearing at an alarming rate. The private house in Moscow belonging to the Constructivist architect Konstantin Melnikov is a striking example of this. The house is an icon of modernist design, and is made up of two intersecting cylinders of equal diameters but different heights. Inside, there are comfortable rooms: a remarkable studio with patterned hexagonal windows and ingeniously designed sleeping areas. The house in Moscow's central Arbat district has been at the centre of dispute since the architect's son Viktor died in 2006. Other Melnikov relatives have taken legal action against each other, and half of the property has been sold to a wealthy senator. In the meantime, new buildings have been built around it, and the house is in need of restoration. See it now before it it mysteriously burns down, a commonplace fate for listed buildings.